Recently Read: Jack Kirby's Dingbat Love

 

TwoMorrow Publishing's book Jack Kirby's Dingbat Love is an historic event, the last collection of previously unpublished 1970s Jack Kirby stories which will ever be published. Comprising stories from the cancelled magazines True-Life Divorce and Soul Love, along with two Dingbats of Danger Street stories, the book confirms (if it was ever in doubt) that the DC editorial hierarchy had no idea what they possessed in the hiring and in the talents of Jack Kirby. Characters he created then which were shortly cancelled live on nearly half a century later in movies, comic books, TV shows and toys.

Kirby's initial early '70s conception for a line of slick, ad-selling genre magazines, which also would contain comics (not all by him) was scaled down by DC into B&W, pulp paper mags with Kirby doing all the writing and art - only two of which were ever published, and then promptly cancelled. Dingbat Love (couldn't TwoMorrows have thought of a better title?) prints all the existing romance stories Kirby wrote and drew for True Life Divorce and Soul Love, in all their various stages of completion. These stories were created by the man who created the genre in comics nearly a quarter of a century earlier, and these more adult tales are explosive, dynamic and inherently compelling, every one of them. Only some dry and unnecessary narration/forwards threaten to impede the greatness of these.

The Dingbat stories, continuing both Kirby's long line of kid gang comics (dating back to 1942) and, specifically, the introduction of Dingbats of Danger Street in 1st Issue Special No. 6, are likewise fun, giving origin stories for two of the gang's members, Krunch and Good Looks. These are top-of-his-game Kirby efforts, beautifully inked by Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry. While it's sad to know, while reading them, that these are the last '70s Kirby stories we'll ever experience, the presentation and superior printing give them a more than respectful send-off.

The collection is also packed with extras: fold out pages for the two-page spreads, essays by John Morrow, Mark Evanier, Jerry Boyd and Steve Sherman, new painting for the cover of Soul Love by Alex Ross, new coloring by Tom Ziuko, rare advertising and page mock-ups for the books and more. Highly recommended.

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Recently Read: The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, Edited by Mark Evanier

The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, edited by author Mark Evanier, is many things: it's a gorgeously designed coffee-table book (heavy enough to knock someone unconscious with), it's a nearly 400-page collection of scans of original art, and it's a roughly chronological record of the work produced by the famous studio (with an  afterward by Jim Simon, son of Joe).

No one needs an excuse to study original Jack Kirby art, and most of what's been published here hasn't been seen by the casual reader or devout Kirby fan. It's fascinating to see the '50s censors eviscerating a harmless Boy's Ranch story, and to study the studio's productions methods (very little of Kirby's art needed white-out or adjusting). 

The big news here is the amazing work by Bill Draut, penciling and inking in the school of Noel Sickles/Milton Caniff but, like Frank Robbins and Lee Elias, taking it to a different plateau. His crime stories printed here are a revelation. Doug Wildey, utilizing a lush illustrative style, Mort Meskin and Al Williamson also surprise and delight.

Reading a mixture of The Fly and Private Strong stories printed together remind the reader of how Kirby's DNA course through the entire history of comics. These stories use themes hearkening back to 1941 and would be revisited in the '70s series The Sandman and Machine Man (and one plot element may have influenced Steve Gerber's melancholy Omega the Unknown). The only small drawback, if a book this fine and essential can be said to have one, is that the stories written and drawn by Joe Simon alone are frequently incomprehensible. All in all, though, the book is emphatically recommended. 

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Recently Read: The Green Arrow, by Jack Kirby

The Green Arrow, by Jack Kirby, reprints all of the late '50s DC Green Arrow stories drawn by Kirby, assisted by his wife, Roz. Mark Evanier writes an informative introduction.

Truth is, this is a book only for Jack Kirby and Green Arrow completists. With most of the stories being written by Dave Wood and Ed Herron, the tales are typical DC stories of the period: simple plots revolving around the heroes' arrows, with no characterization in sight. If you want to read about the Arrowcar, the Luminescent Arrow, the Vine Arrow, the Boomerang Arrow, the Arrowplane - in short, if you're positively obsessed with arrows, you'll love this book. Others will want to pass.

The art is worth seeing, especially since Kirby did much of his own inking here, a rarity in his later years. Most of the art is as perfunctory as Kirby art ever (rarely) became. Only in the last story, "The Green Arrow's First Case" does Kirby really come alive. There's a four-page sequence, set on an island, that is expressed with such boldness it looks more like a 1967 Captain America sequence than a late '50s DC story. Whether Kirby was taking such risks because he knew it was his last Green Arrow story, or whether it could have been the beginning of a new and better artistic direction for the series, we'll never know.

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Comics I've Read Recently April 13, 2015

 

 

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Recently Read: The Best of Simon and Kirby

The Best of Simon and Kirby is a 2009 sampler of the comic book work Joe Simon and Jack Kirby created; the publisher, Titan, has continued publishing in-depth Simon and Kirby collections, each centered on a different genre.

This is possible because, beginning in the early '40s, Simon and Kirby published work in nearly every comic book genre and, in the case of romance comics, created the genre themselves. They weren't first on the ground with superhero comics, but the high energy and high impact work by Kirby on the duo's Captain America made Superman's art look anemic and it set the tone for superhero comics for the next seventy years.

Joe Simon wrote a foreward for the book (he died not long after the book was published) and historian and friend of Kirby Mark Evanier wrote informative introductions to each chapter. This large (nearly 240 pages), beautifully designed and printed book is helped immeasurably by the painstaking restoration work of Harry Mendryk who, along with Michael Gagne,is doing the best Kirby restoration work for print. The coloring is faithful to the original comics and the book is published on matte paper, not the hideous, glossy, light-reflecting stuff used for so many years in reprints published by DC and Marvel.

Genres represented are superheroes, war, crime, romance, humor, horror and science fiction. As fans of Simon and Kirby know, the crime and romance stories are nearly always strong, reflecting the hard-hitting, raw and passionate emotions displayed in the early '30s Warner Bros. movies Kirby loved.

The only genre in which Simon and Kirby aren't successful is humor; their work geared for that market just isn't very funny. That's an odd fact when you consider how funny Kirby could be within the context of more serious comics, from Boy's Ranch to The Fantastic Four to Captain Victory.

It's also clear that Joe Simon on his own just doesn't hold up in this context. A Runyonesque story he created on his own, "His Highness the Duke of Broadway", is painfully illustrated and the work printed here from his '60s Mad Magazine ripoff, Sick, is flat and embarrassing. In over forty years, I've yet to read a funny issue of Sick.

Still, there's lots of good work to plow through here (it took me weeks to read it) and if you're unfamiliar with the team's work of this period, I recommend this sampler as an entryway into their world.

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Book About Comics Recently Read: Kirby, King of Comics by Mark Evanier

A beautifully designed and written book, Kirby: King of Comics features a fine summing up of Kirby's career with an astounding array of cartooning examples shot from the original art boards, notes, corrections and all. A profound tribute to one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Highly recommended.

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